


Cigarettes and Sadness, with a Little Bit of Madness

by LimitedMorality (pikagioma)



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Depression, Discrimination, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Literary References & Allusions, Loki (Marvel) Feels, M/M, Magic, Necromancer!Loki, Necromancer!Tony Stark, Necromancy, Politics, Pre-Slash, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 05:23:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20353087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pikagioma/pseuds/LimitedMorality
Summary: Necromancers are no longer allowed to visit graveyards. Not even for mourning.a prompt from thependragonwritersguild on tumblrWe think of the key, each in his prisonThinking of the key, each confirms a prison—T. S. EliotHe could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone.—James Joyce





	Cigarettes and Sadness, with a Little Bit of Madness

**Author's Note:**

> title of this fic comes from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpcAJuTk2oU) song.

It’s been another week, and nothing seems to change.

People come and go, they leave their beds only to return to them in the wee hours of the morning after, scarcely conscious of what transpired after the rush of hormones has left them in the afterglow. They become silhouettes with no name and no face, just bodies to keep warm in the endless cold of an empty chest. Loneliness is a bitch, someone said a long time ago. Turns out they were right all along. They also said that trying to understand each other is futile, and everyone lives in a delusional reality of grasping at straws and general misinterpretation.

The smoke rising quietly from his parted lips doesn’t seem to give a shit either way. A pair of brown glassy eyes blink in and out of existence.

Tony himself isn’t sure whether he wants to understand in the first place: he has made his token effort, when it counted, and look at him now. Alone, for good this time, and thinking about existentialism and the decay of society. Talk about good times.

His latest bedmate shifts next to him, and Tony can’t remember their face for the life of him. He can feel heat just barely warming his side, but there is no real skin contact. Maybe there never was. Maybe there really is something about those fucking thoughts. 

It doesn’t matter. Nothing changes anyway.

The cigarette ends up smothered on his nightstand, the ashes flickering in the light of dawn coming in from the only small window in the room. Tony sits up and throws on last night’s clothes, ratty jeans and a rare, not-stained white shirt, as he wanders out of the room, legs wobbly and a faint throbbing coming from his nether regions—at least he knows who received, and the realisation almost makes him laugh. 

But he doesn’t smile.

The door to his left leads to his lab, and he makes a beeline for it, intent on losing himself in his work once more, as it has always been, but a crisp voice cuts through the fog swimming in front of his eyes.

“Sir, you haven’t slept in fifty-one hours, and your readings are-“

“J, quit your sass. That’s just how I read compared to a normal person,” the door slides open with the hiss of a well-oiled mechanism, and Tony hurries inside, eager to forget just for a little while. “Just, be a pal and give me the inventory list, alright? Stephen said he was gonna come with me to the Sinner’s Market tomorrow, so I need to know what to buy. I don’t want to stay there more than I absolutely have to.”

With a wave of his hand, numerous lamps floating along the ceiling light up, and he can hear the auras of DUM-E and U scurrying about the place. JARVIS's form coils around him like a snake and phases through his clothes as he strides forward, the cool feeling of his companion soothing his mind for a little while. 

Tony isn’t really alone, strictly speaking. He has this sort of acquired family comprised of three fairies' reanimated souls, and on most days they are enough to distract him from accidentally setting fire to his spell books. So, as the habit has become more and more ingrained into him, the mage has seen it fit to transfer all his knowledge onto those handy tablets kids like to fuck around with these days. That’s also partially why his lab looks disconcertingly like some kind of futuristic Star Trek holo-deck and not one of those wooden racks for witches you see in children’s books.

He’s not very good at adhering to stereotypes, has never been.

He has built almost everything in this room, except the walls themselves, and not because he can’t, but because the extreme crisis that hit the magical society a few years back has reduced the probability of him obtaining a salary even more than usual. Because usually, people with Tony’s skill set are just about the last people one would consult for cosmic advice.

That’s because, well… Tony is a Necromancer.

Historically speaking, Necromancers have never been the people’s favourites, edging from mere outcasts to outright victims of persecutions. That applies to all kinds of mages and witches, of course, but when has one ever rejoiced at the idea of seeing a loved one rise from their grave, only bones to account for their presence? Granted, they would only manifest for as long as the caster sustains the spell, and can't do much more than talk in whispers, but it’s not like the general populace is aware of that. For all they know, the Black Wizards are currently recruiting the dead to bring forth their own army, or whatever shit the higher powers are preaching about now.

When a number of restrictions were placed on potion ingredients and accessible places to frequent, Tony had balked and protested they were, without a doubt, reverting to the Dark Ages, and that soon pitchforks and fires would be the new trend to follow. After barely two years of experiencing the newly-lessened freedom and, by contrast, ‘increased security’, the Wizard is more inclined to refer to the ‘40s as a source of inspiration: Necromancers aren't forced to wear coloured armbands yet, but who knows? Not that they would need them, seeing as it’s their magical signature to differentiate them from other mages, but still.

Stephen isn’t subject to particular kinds of deprivations, like being unable to enter a public building without a pass or a ‘guardian’ at all times, but his is still a far cry from their initial circumstances. Luckily, with his State-Sorcerer pass and his endless patience, he is able to chaperone Tony almost anywhere he needs to go, as if he wasn’t already massively indebted to the mage for being his asshole-ish friend in times of need. Normally, that honour would be reserved to-

His hands freeze where they have been sliding along the spines of thick volumes, curling into fists to rest at his sides. It’s been more than a year, and yet the way his heart throbs in his chest tells him that it’s nearly not enough. Despite how she told him to not linger on their memories, to not let her hold him back, Tony still finds himself unable to move on. Cemented in his own head with thoughts less friendly than the public’s opinion.

Pepper was akin to an anchor for him, she represented, and still does, everything good in the world, and she left him shy of three years into their, admittedly shaky at best, relationship. He’d been trying and managing to not fuck up excessively, adhering to the strict principles of monogamy as best as he could, and even when he strayed Pepper knew how to rein him in. Tony wouldn’t call it the perfect relationship, but it held strong where it mattered.

Now he doesn’t have that anymore—and the days drag on monotonously. 

Nothing seems to fucking change.

He knows that he has never amounted to anything much, with his talents and brains being the only noteworthy qualities of his, something others could exploit. Tony Stark isn’t notorious for his emotional attachment to things, and many have speculated on the honesty of their relationship. There just seems to be no way that a man that tried it all—regarding sexual encounters—can feel anything more than vague detachment when engaged in such 'depraved acts'. As if sex would be the only reason to tie himself with another; although, in his case, they may have a point, as his history has never seen him involved with another person (because none of them were Pepper Potts.)

Still, they really are reverting to the past. What’s next, banning hand-holding from the list of acceptable outside behaviour? Are times going back to the censorship of human hearts? Then again, the throbbing human machine might already be a thing for the history books…

With a weary sigh, Tony pries himself from the lab as well, ignoring the distressed cries of the fairies he leaves behind, too absorbed in his brooding to notice whether the person in his bed is gone and they have stolen anything. He heads out, shivering in the winter air, almost not bothering to put on a jacket when he thinks of the protection the afterlife casts over him, making him impervious to temperature changes due to his connection to the dead. Then he thinks of the sort of attention that might bring, and he grabs the first garment his hands can reach before hightailing it out of his own apartment.

Maybe he needn’t worry about being seen: the streets are empty, emptier than they have been in a long time, the only stragglers a couple of rats scurrying along the sidewalk, mindful of the small heaps of garbage littered here and there. Tony watches them escape the cold grey sky as they follow roadside drains into the underground sewers, and muses if there’s a connection to what he does everyday.

There’s nothing to do but keep walking, because the various arcane-shops that once coloured the city are slowly closing, and the few that stay open aren’t near where Tony lives. To acquire the materials he needs to practise his Art, he has to go to the Dark Dimension to get anything—the Sinner’s Market, as he said before. Magic is the only thing that keeps him sane these days, but it comes at an exorbitant price, and Tony isn’t sure if he’ll be able to afford any of the high-tier stuff for much longer. Not if the already insufficient list of small jobs he can take on keeps dwindling.

Around him, a breeze picks up any leaves it finds on the ground and scatters them upward, making his eyes flick to follow them, startled.

Tony stops between one steps and the next, gaze fixed morosely on the metal gates in front of him. This… this is the reason why he moved here in the first place, where the demands for a Necromancer were the highest, years back. Nothing quite like the resting place of a thousand-give-or-take people to attract business. And it seemed respectful of others’ business, as well, to not have a Death Mage on their turf.

Graveyards hold a special place in the hearts for many people, both for their significance and the implicit respect one ought to observe when walking among the tombstones of so many loved ones. For Necromancers, a cemetery is much like a second home—or a first, if your name is Stark—where they can seek council and help whoever requests them to, because the weight of the dead’s prophecies is unparalleled. Many rulers seek aid from shadows of former enemies and allies alike, countless lovers weep when their halves relay their messages, families are brought together again by a little advice from a dear ancestor’s words.

There are a number of infinite ways they can help, Tony thinks. And yet, somehow it’s always forgotten that Wizards are humans like all others. That they might be standing in the same graveyard as the other people they are helping because they, too, have someone to mourn. To remember.

The same people that theorise the impossible event of an invasion eventually released a public decree: ‘No Necromancer, be it with whichever purpose they state, is to be allowed into any graveyard, or private resting place of anyone’s choosing. For security reasons, one caught in hiding or supporting this kind of activity will be presented with a fee to be paid as soon as the deed is denounced. Any Necromancer trespassing will be sentenced to an indefinite period in the first Anti-Magic Cell available.’

They cannot mourn anymore, and isn't that destroying yet another line separating them from animals?

Tony turns, legs suddenly unsteady, and makes his way to sit on one of the nearby benches, those that were installed outside the perimeter after the decree. They are uncomfortable, and they aren’t made to rest for long with their stone seats, but they serve their purpose.

He slumps on the farthest right, lights up another cigarette, and keeps looking on, wondering if the tombstone has cracked with the humidity, and if someone is tending to her flowers. Asters were the ones she liked, he remembers, because they are perennials and symbolise patience. Tony isn’t sure if anyone else knows this, and isn’t comfortable approaching the keepers to tell them—after all, they are not interested in receiving a Necromancer’s advice on how to tend to their workplace. The worst that can happen is they give her lilies, since she had a massive allergic reaction whenever she got close to them. He knows because he tried giving her a whole bouquet of them, once.

Someone coughs. 

Tony almost jumps out of his skin.

When he turns to his left, heart in his throat, there is a man sitting two spaces away, assessing him with a frown on his face. His eyes are green, acidic, and his complexion pale enough to be almost translucent. By contrast, his hair is as black as the night sky, and his dark clothes look as tattered as he feels. There is a tear-shaped emerald green pendant hanging by his neck, the worn string keeping it from falling partly hidden by the black lapels of a short black cape, and a thin bone staff rests in his lithe hands. 

Because Tony looks just like him, minus the wand and cape, he knows this is a fellow Necromancer.

“Are you okay?” the stranger asks, the flicker of worry deep in his eyes almost lost in the impassivity of his features.

Tony understands—it’s not easy to spare energy for others, when you’re so concerned with trying to survive yourself. He appreciates the effort, but he can’t help but let out a bark of mirthless laughter, “Does it matter, these days?”

The stranger doesn’t answer but with a noncommittal hum, and his eyes slide back to watching the high fence. They look like they have lost all their colour by then, unfocused, distant. Tony feels bad, but not that much. There’s something secretly shared between people like them at this point, and it’s the implicit knowledge that places like this bring forth nothing but pain and good memories. It’s bittersweet, but it helps them to cope with everything, he thinks.

They sit there for a long while, each lost in their own head with highlight reels of their own choosing, not really seeing anything if not the phantoms of the past, which are not really phantoms, but they can pretend well enough. Overhead, the cloudy sky turns purple, but neither of them notice.

Silence has never been Tony’s forte, so at one point he decides to speak, more out of politeness than anything else. Or maybe he wanted to thank the other by offering some reprieve from his thoughts.

“How old are you?” he asks, keeping his tone low to not disturb. Well, not more than he originally intended.

Age is another delicate point for Black Mages, because they don’t live a normal life-span. If they’re fortunate, or unfortunate, enough, they can live for millennia with immunity to aging and everything that comes with it. Such is the blessing of the dead, and yet another thing that divides them from the common folk, who has learnt to despise their uncommon durability.

These days, they don’t really ask each other’s age anymore, but Tony has never been good at making small talk, so he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.

The stranger only huffs at the question, “Older than you, surely,” and he looks tired enough for it, so Tony lets it go.

His hands are twitching around his own round blue medallion, set against his sternum. He has never realised how hard it is to speak with someone who is probably more awkward than himself, and mentally thanks his fae for putting up with him every day. The eyes are back on him though, so he counts it as progress.

“So,” he hesitates, because he doesn’t actually know if he can keep talking or if he’s overstepping, which he probably is, “Who are you here for?”

The other gives a full-body flinch, and Tony wonders if he should offer himself to be possessed or if the ground is capable of swallowing him whole, “No, I’m sorry- look, I’m very sleep-deprived, and-“

“It was my mother.”

The answer comes unexpected, and it just helps in making him feel even more like shit. He is sure that nothing good will happen if he talks again—hell, he’s not even sure why the guy is still sitting there with him—so he just stares at the ground, and tries to ignore the faint warmth creeping up his neck.

Even more unexpectedly, the stranger keeps talking.

“It… it happened quite a while ago. My family and I had never been… on the best of terms, you could say, and when she left, I finally had no more reason to stay.” It’s clear that telling his story pains him, but he carries on nonetheless, “I never knew how she-“ a pause, “I wasn’t there. I was told she was murdered, but not by whom, or how, although she was a Necromancer as well, so I can guess the why. As I said, I didn’t remain long enough to acquire the details. I have not seen any of them since.”

Another pause, this time of contemplation instead of painful remembrance. Tony is briefly stunned into silence: he doesn’t know how he would react if someone took a loved one (see: Pepper) from him, but he’s sure that he wouldn’t just leave. He would fucking hunt the guy down and make him un-alive himself. 

He looks over at the guy again, notes his hunched shoulder, the way he wrings his hands—wand now set carefully aside,—the crease between his brows, and tries to offer some words of comfort.

“I’m really sorry,” is what comes out, lame and inadequate, like the closed-off buildings around them, but that’s all he can wring out with his emotional stuntedness.

Those eyes become greener as they focus back on him. His words seem to get some tension off the other’s shoulders, and he mutters, “Thank you,” sincere in a way that makes it sound like he hasn't heard that nearly enough times as he should have, and Tony is abruptly reminded of his own family situation. He tries to smile a little, but he’s unsure it doesn’t look like a grimace.

“How about you?” the guys asks back.

Tony can hear bitter retaliation in his tone and thinks he might even deserve it, so he ignores the pang in his chest and straightens up a bit.

“… It was someone I loved dearly,” he begins, knowing that his faked confidence won't assist him until the end, “She didn’t die in a murder mystery, but…” the half-assed joke makes them both bark out a laugh, and Tony immediately appreciates the guy’s sense of humour, “She left after three year of us being together. Miraculously. No, really, she was the miracle that kept our relationship standing for so long. She was… perfection in every sense of the world,” he can feel his eyes sting even before he finishes talking, “I’m just… honoured I got to stay with her. No matter how long it lasted.”

This time the silence seems to last longer, and Tony is grateful for it. He needs the time to put himself back together as best he can, because he’s never told anyone about Pepper—it’s not like he has anyone to tell, and that might be something else he shares with the stranger. Similar backgrounds make for similar stories, he supposes.

There’s a sharp awareness in those eyes, and it tells him the stranger noticed his small loss of control. Tony almost doesn’t mind him staring, so long as he doesn’t find any of the disgusting pitying looks Stephen directed towards him in the past.

“I’m… sorry,” the other mutters, softly and hesitatingly, like he’s trying to put in as much kindness as he can muster, which isn’t a whole lot. It brings out a sad smile on Tony’s face though, so he has succeeded plenty, in his opinion.

The air seems much less heavy between them now, and Tony wonders if they both needed the confession. They exchange a knowing look and unanimously decide to drop the chatter, going back to stare at the gates with slightly less desperation than before.

Just then, a young couple walks past their seats, and they don’t feel magic at all, so they must be normal people. They don’t sneer, which is rare, but they do get this expression like they’ve sucked a whole lemon, and quicken their pace until they’ve turned around a corner. Tony, and undoubtedly the other as well, can hear vicious comments being spat out like venom as soon as they’re not visible. It used to sting, being subject to this unfair treatment, but he’s lived long enough that the pain has dulled to the point where he doesn’t pay much attention to it anymore.

A glance to his companion’s blank face tells the same thing about him.

Tony sighs. A groan escapes him when he stands up—those seats were abysmal, really—and he catches the amused smirk on the guy’s face from the corner of his eye. 

Before he can think twice about it, he blurts out, “Hey, uhm, I was going to get a coffee at that one bar down the street, with the golden sign? I was wondering,” he bites his lip, nervous but not coward enough to backtrack now, “You could come with? If you want to? And if you have time, I wouldn’t want to distract you from an ongoing spell or something. I thought, uh- I thought it would be nice, to get away from,” he waves his hand around to encompass the gates, the distant graves, the cold sky, everything.

Tony knows someone in need of a distraction when he sees them, and the other Wizard looks a bit too much like him on his worst days, before he turns to the bottle and gets lost in faceless people. He looks like he’s about to fall to the ground and shatter to pieces, and no matter how old he is it’s just not right to look so weary. He of all people would know. 

He really hopes he accepts his offer too, because even this little talking they’ve been doing has helped filling in the silence in Tony’s life more than any other one-night stand, and he would wager the guy was looking for that very same result too when he first spoke to him. Somehow, he feels like the whole conversation was scripted, with their back and forth between useless platitudes, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing—not when there’s nothing left otherwise.

The stranger, when Tony snaps out of his musings, is still staring ahead at the gates, but he’s not watching them anymore: his face is thoughtful, probably considering the proposition. When he goes back to staring at him, his brows are furrowed in what looks like confusion. Maybe he didn’t actually expect this, after all.

“Why would you show yourself with me? We’re both… not favoured by anyone in particular, and we would have better chances at hiding our presence if we did not group together,” he says, and Tony narrows his eyes. 

He’s looking out for him, he realises, even though he’s hiding it pretty well, and Tony is almost touched by the token effort, but-

“-Honestly, I don’t really care that much anymore,” he shrugs, “they’ve condemned us, but they aren’t persecuting us yet. We can still step outside and walk to public places. I don’t care about,” he gestures to the direction the couple vanished in, “as long as it doesn’t harm me, because, admit it, if we were to listen to everything everyone said about us, we’d become recluse bastards, even more than we are now.” He rakes a hand through his messy hair and tries again, “So? Do you want a drink? It’s on me, but only this one time. I still need to buy groceries tomorrow.”

The guy’s lips twitch into a small smirk, and Tony feels like he’s passed some sort of test.

“Very well,” he dusts off his black jeans, picks up his staff, and gets up, not even flinching. After flicking his eyes—which are very green now, almost like his pendant, Tony notices—one last time towards the closed-off graveyard, he takes one step forward and just… stands there, staring at him expectantly in the now reddish light of the setting sun. Has he forgotten something? Amusement creeps in on the stranger’s face as they face each other, and Tony thinks back on their conversation, trying to remember if he missed some sort of cue. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Then it dawns on him.

“Oh,” he laughs, sincere and warm for the first time in many years. He extends his hand, still laughing, “Sorry about that. I’m Tony.”

The other grins, still small, but it reaches his eyes, catching the last rays of sunlight before the dark descends around them, a couple of street lamps flickering on and off before bathing the benches in sickly yellow neon lights. Their skin looks transparent, like a corpse's, and Tony can see the thin veins running through flesh as they meet in the middle.

“It is no matter, Tony. My name is Loki.”

“Well then, Loki,” he parrots back, turning around, “Shall we?”

He nods, and they both move to step into the shadows, not really minding the pitch black darkness when they’re not facing it on their own anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> This work was inspired by a miscellaneous of quotes and prompts- honestly, it came to me while i was studying lit, specifically "The Fire Sermon" from "The Wasteland" by T S Eliot: both 'the throbbing human machine' and the 'rats' are direct quotations from his work, and the passionless sex, that is the main them of the Sermon, is how Tony begins his day as well.  
Joyce, i mainly used to define the general vibe of the fic, specifically adopting his view of Dublin in "Dubliners", from which one cannot escape because it symbolises the forced cicles of endless routine. Hence the various repetitions ('Nothing seems to change' and the fact that they keep looking back to the gates of the graveyard) and the relatively short duration of the time of the story (only a day, filled with recollections and epiphanies, another central theme to his works.)
> 
> with the impromptu lit lesson done, hope you enjoyed this- slightly darker- fic of mine! this can be seen either as pre-slash or platonic friendship, i don't mind as long as they get along well, because they deserve a worthy companion ;v;  
the worldbuilding is a bit wonky, probably, but only because i don't intend to expand on this- for now.
> 
> feedback is appreciated! lemme know what you think guys ;)
> 
> p.s.: check out my [tumblr](https://roombasdump.tumblr.com) for more content, and if you wanna scream @ me about anything really. i also post art on there *finger guns*


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